It’s a film actor, not Mahatma Gandhi doing the tango!

Recently, some strange pictures of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, taken from various movies and events, have surfaced on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, with many believing them as real.

The latest is a photo of Nathuram Godse, standing with a gun and about to shoot Gandhi. Apparently, it’s a still from a 1963 movie called Nine Hours to Rama, which was based on Godse’s life.

A few days ago, some ultra-patriotic surfers also circulated another “pre-1947” picture of “two Indian freedom fighters being hanged in public by the British police.” Now it is learnt that the picture was actually of two African Americans being lynched by a white racist mob.

Last but not the least, is one of the most popular of these images doing the rounds on social media. It is of a ‘dancing Gandhi’ where the Mahatma seems to be doing a ‘tango’ with a white lady in a brown sepia-tone photograph. But sources have revealed that in reality, this is a picture of an Australian film actor portraying Gandhi at a charity event in Sydney a few years ago.

“If you mark this picture minutely, Gandhiji has muscles on his arms. This is the give away, as we all know that the Mahatma was skinny,” says Bollywood PR guru Dale Bhagwagar, who feels it is our collective moral duty to bring out the facts about such pictures to the fore.

“This kind of a mix-up of history could be dangerous. It may have long-term implications with a large number of people being misled with incorrect perceptions about national leaders and icons of society,” the celebrity publicist points out.